Strike The Root Blog

This latest news on the Transportation Security Administration’s valiant efforts to keep us all safe and protected from the Islamo-Fascist Terror Menace comes to us by way of Manuel Lora at Lew Rockwell’s blog:

For arguing with a TSA agent, Robin Kassner wound up being slammed to the floor. She’s filed a lawsuit.

“I kept begging them over and over again get off of me…and they wouldn’t stop,” Kassner said.

And it wasn’t enough for another woman to show TSA agents nipple rings that set off a metal detector. The agents forced her to take them out.

Mandi Hamlin said, “I had to get pliers and pull it apart.”

In Chicago, people like Robert Perry are subjected to exhaustive security checks. He was patted down, his wheel chair was examined and his hands were swabbed, all in public view in a see-through room at the security checkpoint. Perry, 71, is not alone.

“It’s humiliation,” Perry said.

Perry was also taken to a see-through room by a TSA agent when his artificial knee set off the metal detector.

“He yelled at me to get the belt off. ‘I told you to get the belt off.’ So I took the belt off. He ran his hands down over and pulled the pants down, they went down around my ankle,” Perry said.

At that point, Perry was standing in his underwear in public view. He asked to see a supervisor. That made things worse.

“She was yelling ‘I have power, I have power, I have power,” Perry said. The power to stop him from flying to Florida with his wife that day to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

“It makes you feel like you have no rights,” Perry said.

Yes, Mr. Perry, that’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel: like you have no rights. That’s the point of all such harassment by government bullies intoxicated with the elixir of Authority. The fact of the matter, however, is that you do have rights, by virtue of the fact that you are a human being. A TSA bullycrat violated those rights by stripping you in full view of other travelers, publicly humiliating you and making you feel like some sub-human freak, reveling in the glory of her power over you as she did it.

Carlos Villarreal, former director of security for the Sears Tower, said proper training is crucial. “When you’re wanding somebody and you can identify which part of the body set of the alarm, that should be sufficient to clear a person,” Villarreal said.

But all too often, it’s not enough for 16-year old Michael Angone. She frequently flies as a member of the Chicago Children’s Choir.

“I’ve had to completely take my pants off and show them like my entire leg,” Angone said.

As a baby, Angone was diagnosed with cancer. Her parents, both Chicago police officers, had to have her leg amputated. She said she always warns TSA security agents that her prosthetic leg will set off the metal detector, but many insist on doing an embarrassing full body pat-down.

“I feel like I’m being felt up in public,” Angone said.

Her father Bob Angone wanted to know, “What’s the reason for all the feeling up, you know the groping at the back of the neck, the chest, underneath the bra, all the groping on her body, her buttocks?”

CBS 2 News asked the TSA those questions, but got no answers.

Of course they got no answers, and most likely they won’t. If they get any response at all, it will most likely be some kind of non-sequiturish bullshit. You know, something like this:

A spokesman said that out of 2 billion passengers screened nationwide since 9-11, there have been only 110,000 abuse complaints.

That should certainly make Robert Perry, Michael Angone, Robin Kassner, Mandi Hamlin, and 109,996 other people feel a whole lot better for having been molested and/or assaulted by the petty tyrants of the TSA: Hey, there’s only been 110,000 of you who have complained. Come on, kwitcherbitchin’!

And it looks like the fun in only just beginning:

The TSA declined to comment on the Angone and Perry cases, but the agency has announced that soon, passengers who set off an alarm that cannot be resolved will have a choice: Agree to a physical pat-down or what some believe is an even worse invasion of privacy.

This fall, O’Hare International Airport will get its first advanced digital x-ray machine. It allows TSA agents to see through clothes and discover any hidden weapons. Critics have likened it to a virtual strip search.

Are you feeling safer yet? Well, I know I am. I’m going to be sleeping a whole lot easier knowing that many more 70-year-old men with artificial knees, teenaged girls with prosthetic legs, young women with nipple rings and anyone who dares question the holy, sanctified Authority of TSA agents will be scanned by an X-ray device. Whatever concerns there may be that this is simply a legalized means of physical molestation by which any of these public servants may be getting some kind of perverse jolly or the simple ego rush of a power trip must be swept aside for the sake of protecting this great land of liberty from the greater evil that seeks to vanquish us.

I mean, who knows what these people might be attempting to carry onto an airplane??? Besides nipple rings and prosthetic knees and legs, of course. Why, these people could even be Islamo-Fascist jihadists in disguise!!!

And you don’t want the Islamo-Fascists to win, do you?

(Cross-posted at The Postmodern Tribune.)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized, civil liberties, jackbooted thugs, fascism, police state, statism, terrorism, liberty, Yourmerica, not satire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.